It’s unclear to me why going to work after getting my teeth pulled
is such unexpected behaviour. As well as Carrie and Mom, Heather,
Chloe, and everyone at my office thought the same thing. It’s not
as if I don’t understand how to recover from trauma (I did spend 10
years balancing my body at the edge of it’s capabilities), or am a
glutton for pain (my body’s voracious appetite for Percocet
demonstrates that). I just had stuff to do, and as long as I was
able to do it, I figured I would. And yes, I left work and went
home for the day before I took the narcotics. I’m not an idiot either.

The procedure was straightforward throughout. Started with the
prerequisite "you have beautiful teeth" that I get every time, then
numbed me up, ranked on my jaw for 30 minutes (with three brief pauses:
one to sit up and swallow, and two to cut my bottom teeth in half), and
then I was done. Moist gauze came out in 45 minutes, novacaine
wore off about 2.5 hours later, aside from the front-left corner of my
tongue and lips which persisted for two more hours, rode home an hour
and half after that, took some drugs and then slept for a couple
hours. Now I’m awake, a little achy (suprisingly, at least to me,
is that it’s my jaw joint - which surely has a better name - that’s the
most sore, not the tooth holes), with imperceptible swelling, and otherwise all good.

You jaw is sore from them yanking on it and holding your mouth open for so long. They put me to sleep, but my sister (who works for a dentist) told me they literally climb on top of you to yank on your jaw sometimes. Ewww. I hurt again just thinking about it!

So did you get the fun little plunger thing to keep your mouth “holes” clean? That was both cool and gross at the same time. But just make sure you don’t use it too soon or you can disrupt the clots. Ewwwww. Clots.